Progeny To Offer Support For Red Hat 8.0 and 9

zerocool^ writes "In a previous story it was noted that Progeny would offer support to Red Hat 7.2 and 7.3 customers facing an End of Life deadline of 31 December 2003. Progeny has updated their 'transitional software' offerings to include support for Red Hat 8.0 and 9 for $5 per month, per machine. This is great news for IT folks who are faced with the choice of a new OS or abandoned 1-year-old software."

Comments

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

One more good reason

[HangingChad]

to go OSS, not that many here needed any more encouragement. Imagine if companies could buy support for NT 4 or Win98 for five bucks a machine after next month? There would be some companies still using them ten years from now. Well, some probably will anyway.

Re:One more good reason

[DA-MAN]

There are a few things I would like to point out.

1) RedHat is Not Linux!
2) Debian has support well over five years, hell unstable has been unstable for what seems like five years!
3) If you are interested in staying with your existing RedHat install after the EOL, you can compile your own code or pay for a service that does it for you. When Microsoft EOL's a product, you are SOL!
4) There are quite a few RedHat Enterprise rebuild that you can download for free (Caosity, TaosLinux, WhiteBox) and use that for FREE!
5) Just because Microsoft had five years of support for their older versions of Windows doesn't mean that will continue. They seem to be pushing licensing 6.0, which seems more like leased software and they will use that to cram upgrades down peoples throats.

I could go on for quite a while, OSS has options. Windows does NOT and that is the power of OSS.

behold

[CAIMLAS]

And this, ladies and gentlemen, is why so many of us use debian on our servers. Sure, the software is 4 years old - but it isn't a headache to support. It doesn't need upgrades, so none are made unless there's a security problem or a bugfix.

(I'm talking about debian stable, btw)

On the other hand, I think it's fairly dastardly and unsportsman-like for RedHat to drop support for their older products. Granted, there's a lot of stuff there to support - so why not weed out non-critical applications from the list of "supportable installations"? apache, sql, and other "enterprise-class" software?

Re:redhat

[finkployd]

Windows 98 is older than one year. (actually it is nearly 6) Redhat 8 and 9 however....

Finkployd

Careful with the "Strength of OSS"

[fygment]

Didn't Windows support their stuff for much longer (e.g. Win95)? And with a very long period of backward compatibility (to the detriment of their product) you didn't really need more support.

Meanwhile, every time you turn around all the Linux distros have changed version. When you go to the use groups for help on an "old" version the reply is: "I don't know, but it doesn't do that in the new version." or "Yeah that was a known bug. The new version takes care of it." Thank gawd the upgrades are cheap $$. If only they were cheap in time.

Re:Careful with the "Strength of OSS"

[TwinkieStix]

Apples to oranges. If it were expensive to upgrade, then people would be giving out different advice. What you are seeing is the easiest solution to the problem. If windows were free, you'd see the messages like "just upgrade to XP and that problem goes away" messages too. This adobe help article actually adivses people to DOWNGRADE to fix a problem.

Re:redhat

[AKnightCowboy]

RedHat? What about Ford? Silly them to EOL supporting the Model T. Now where the hell am I going to get a pistons for a 177CU 22 HP motor? Now how the hell can I top out at 30MPH?

You Red Hat apologists are worse than the Mac fanatics. Can you possibly come up with a worse analogy than that? Red Hat 9 is less than 1 year old and will cease to receive security updates as of the end of April! That's like announcing you'll no longer be able to get parts or service for your 2003 Ford Explorer after April. Oh, and your support warranty? Sorry, that's going to be discontinued, but we'll give you a discount on upgrading to one of our new 2004 Ford Expeditions with the extended warranty coverage for your trouble. People that actually buy into Red Hat Enterprise Linux are morons if they think Red Hat won't do this to them again. How will you like your shiny new copy of RHEL 3 when you find out it'll be EOL'd in a year and you'll be forced to upgrade to RHEL 4 if you want to continue to get basic security updates? Even Microsoft is a LOT better than that. Windows 2000 came out in 1999 and still is updated quite frequently. I have some serious decisions I need to make within the next few months. Do I want to continue with this Linux experiment or go back to a tried and proven company that respects their customers like Microsoft. I can't afford to reinstall my OS every year... Sorry Red Hat, but you lose my business.

Re:What integrity?

[irix]

that decided to suddenly drop support for their product not even a year later?

I am trying hard to resist flaming, but you are an idiot. For 50th time since this story broke, RedHat announced there would only be one year of support for 9 when it was released. That's right, when it was released.

I don't care how much you and every other "RedHat sucks, RedHat has no integrity" moron weren't paying attention. They clearly announced their intentions, and started promoting the RHEL line at that time.

You are free to disagree with RedHat's move, but all of this anti-RedHat FUD is really disgusting.

Let's try and clarify

[Coryoth]

I've read an awful lot of "see this is why open source is good" and "hah! Windows 98 had free support for 5 years", so let's just boil this down a little.

No one (except maybe a few deluded individuals) are claiming that Redhats EOL after only a year is a particularly nice thing to have happen. I'm not that happy about it, but I can push on with Fedora which actually works quite nicely, and all will be well. But the short answer is: EOL after a year is a bad thing no matter who does it. Equally, I think Microsoft supporting Windows 98 for 5 years is not a bad effort all things considered (and there will be fewer who will agree with me on that, but hey).

I think the point being made here is NOT that Redhat EOLing after a year is good, or terribly acceptable. The point is that, under this system, in the worst case if the company you are with ups stakes and moves to a different market and leaves you in the cold, you have some recourse.

I think it is great that Microsoft has provided 5 years of support for Windows 98. The catch is, if they were to decide t EOL Server 2003 tomorrow, there's not a whole lot anyone could do about it (especially given the healthy degree of lockin Microsoft has gained). I don't think that Microsoft will do that, but then we don't know. I do recall there was some fuss recently about whether the latest OS X patches were going to available for Jaguar. Had they not been, what would Apple users been left with? Or, to look at it another way, BeOS got seriously EOLd a while ago. There are some fine efforts with OpenBeOS to reconstruct it, but that's no small task, and until they manage something BeOS is effectively dead (well, okay, there's Zeta, but that was a lucky save). This is a demonstration that, in the worst case for a Linux Distro, it's not the end.

So, to reapeat: EOL - bad. Continuing Support - good.

Jedidiah.

Re:redhat

[johnnyb]

"When Microsoft EOLs its products after 6 or 7 years, they're doing it to force customers into upgrades."

I think you missed the point in this article. Whem Microsoft EOLs its products, YOU HAVE NO ALTERNATIVES. When RH EOLs its products, you can turn to any company willing to offer support.

Since the source code isn't available for Windows, you just don't have that option. Therefore, Microsoft has a much higher responsibility with how it handles product lifecycles.